Is this American art form, once practiced expertly by late night television comedians, now dead?

All signs point to "yes."

It's not that he did it on purpose. Obama has a fine sense of humor and can take a joke and tell jokes on himself. And he's got a magnetic smile.

But according to one theory, he came home exhausted after a long day in the Oval Office, tired from transcending the politics of our past, and from appointing another couple of dozen czars to run things. So he sat down hard on a pillow on a White House couch, oblivious to the fact that presidential satire was underneath, hiding.

There was a terrible crunch. A look of surprise. A tiny muffled scream. Then it was over. It really doesn't matter if it was a mistake or by executive order. The little critter is dead just the same.

Not all political comedy is dead. David Letterman feels free to make jokes about the teenage daughter of Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin having sex with a Yankee slugger. But Democratic presidential satire has gone into a cryogenic freeze.

Just about every other president you can think of in modern times has been lampooned. It happened to Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon and Johnson.

Kennedy? Not so much.

But then Kennedy, like Obama, was born in Camelot. All the others got a merciless thwacking.

These days, though, it seems that our present-day comics, particularly the TV comics, can't tell a snarky joke about Obama.

It just might be all that Hopium most writers have been smoking. Scientists will no doubt discover that Hopium has a devastating side effect: The human laugh glands shrivel like forgotten grapes that rolled behind the fridge.

I just might let those scientists take a slice of my brain after my Hopium crop comes in, once I scrape it off the Obama Chia Heads on my desk, the Determined Chia Obama head and the Happy Chia Obama head. But that could take some time. Those little buds aren't growing as fast as I planned.

In the meantime, aren't there any comedians who can stay off the Hopium pipe long enough to write a few skits about the Obama White House?

Where's the one about Michelle Obama refusing to accompany Barack to Saudi Arabia, saying "Honey, I can't go with you to Saudi! I don't have anything with sleeves!"

Or the president sneaking a smoke in his bathrobe out on the White House lawn in the middle of the night, waiting for family dog Bo to finish his business. Obama forgets the plastic bag, so he's forced to order a maid to pick up Bo's leavings, yet suffers sharp pangs of liberal guilt as she stoops to clean up. Hilarity ensues.

Or an Obama character in a Star Trek uniform, as another black Vulcan with big ears.

But you don't see any of this from Letterman or Jon Stewart, or the writers at "Saturday Night Live."

"Maybe they just want him to succeed, because these are very serious times, with the economy in chaos, and he must succeed or we're in big trouble," said an Obama supporter who, through the slitted eyes of a Hopium smoker, has nevertheless observed the presidential satire deficit. "Did they make fun of Bush right after 9/11?"

No, they waited a couple weeks.

But as the president keeps telling us, the time of Obama is the most serious time since the Great Depression, so that theory might explain things. You don't make fun of a president as the nation waits to be driven from their homes, to huddle along railroad tracks, building fires in garbage cans, dreaming of a single potato to eat, while a small child plays the harmonica in the cold mud.

Yet there have been other serious times, during war and chaos, and comics still made fun of the guy in the White House. So that can't be it. Making fun of the president is one of the few joys left to impoverished people.

In Obama comedy land, he's always the cool guy, the most interesting man in the world, but without the Dos Equis and the fake chest hair. In some Obama skits, you wait for the Obama character to turn to the camera and say "Stay thirsty my friends. Look, these are difficult times, yes. But stay thirsty."

In Obama comedy land, other politicians are grasping, desperate madmen. Hillary Clinton was a psychotic shrew one twitch from a nervous breakdown. Funny stuff. Joe Biden was a paranoid lunatic. Ha! John McCain was a paranoid grumpy old man.

And Obama?

He's so cool.

One theory about why the TV comedians lay off this White House is that we're still in the presidential honeymoon phase, which should last about seven more years. Another theory involves race. He's the first president with black skin and they're terrified of making jokes lest they be condemned as racists, and that's not funny.

But if Obama is truly the guy who fed the multitudes at his inauguration, with two McFish fillets and five hot dog buns, then he's the one who should have mercy on the TV comics, find that little critter under the pillow, and bring presidential satire back to life.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

John Kass is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Comments by clicking here.

Previously:

06/11/09: E-Verify works, so, of course, let's not use it06/09/09: First Lady Macbeth's the man, so in your face, Eminem06/02/09: Judge Sotomayor would think me most unwise05/12/09: Parents, enjoy this time, in all its creepiness03/18/09: Stem cell policy shift brings a sinking feeling03/09/09: Name That Blago Book contest names its winner03/05/09: Contest: Name Blagojevich's book02/16/09: Dems undercut aid for U.S. workers01/20/09: Let the carving begin on Tombstone's tomb01/12/09: Obama serves Reid taste of Chicago Way01/02/09: Jesters don't pick up the race card in a nationally televised news conference and slam it into the face of every Dem in the Senate, a palm heel strike to the tip of the nose, leaving all of them watery-eyed, their lips stinging12/24/08: Governor waxes poetic, but Combine rolls on12/23/08: Got corruption? Get Jesse Junior G-Man12/18/08: Will feditis spread to Obama and Daley? 12/15/08: Man behind curtain is wizard of Rod, Rahm